Signs to Correct a Racist Language

After hearing Martha Raddatz speak or rather, see her two American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters translate, I wondered what type of signs they were using for the countries Iran, Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan. At one point, I saw one of the interpreters pull her hand down from her chin to form a beard. And, at another time, I saw one interpreter make a motion from one cheek to the other, as if forming a veil. So, just out of curiosity, I looked up the signs for these countries.

[Click on the words or numbers to see video of each sign; taken from http://aslresource.net/CountrySigns.html]

Afghanistan – 1) "V" bounce on head at temple, palm touching head, 2) Bent "V" (palm out) taps in middle of forehead, 3) FATHER (spread "5") handshape touches forehead at thumb and draws a line straight across forehead (from TALIBAN), 4) "A.F." taps on chin stating at the left with "A" then moving to the right with "F", 5) extended-thumb "B" hand pulls across the face into an "A" touching the other cheek with the thumb (reminiscent of women formerly covering their face but now freedom to reveal the face), 6) like BASE/FOUNDATION, tap "A" at the wrist then move down the forearm to tap "F" on the elbow, 7) palm-back "B" hands make a mask and only show eyes, tap face twice,
8) palm-up “C” hand moves down from the chin

Iran – tip of thumb taps in middle of palm
Iraq – ASL: 1) modified "C" taps on chin at fingertips, 2) "Q" fingertips tap on center of palm; indigenous: index finger of "B" taps center forehead
          Baghdad– index points in circles at palm-up hand
Israel – 1) "i" touches chin on the left then on the right, 2) palm-back "U" fingertips touch at chin then swoop down into palm-forward "U" (indigenous), 3)JEWISH (bent "5" fingertips grasp chin then pull down into flat "O" as if stroking the beard)
          Jerusalem– 1) Claw (bent fingers of "5") come down on palm down on "B", 2) "B" palm touches lips then out to kiss wall, 3) (ASL) "J" + TOWN (fingertips of "B" hands touch with palms facing each other and twist at the wrist as if showing several rooftops) 

Afghanistan and Israel had signs that could be considered offensive. So, I dug a little deeper and came across this video, which happens to be comedian Russell Peters performing three signs for Jew. While probably not the best reference for ASL, he is in fact “not making [it] up”, except for that last one (might be slang, but I couldn’t find a credible source for it).

In the video, you will see that there are three considerably racist signs for Jew: 1) the sign forming a beard; 2) the sign forming a nose; 3) the sign forming money. While Russell Peters seems offended by these signs, he then proceeds to make up his own racists signs for Arab and makes fun of the deaf community. To ASL’s credit, they are working toward political correctness. As reported in the South China Morning Post in1994, ASL did drop four signs for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai. In addition, ASL created a new sign for “African American” and “gay”.  

This makes me think about two class discussions. One, we briefly touched upon racism in comedy when Travis brought up the example of Dave Chapelle and the moment where making fun of his own race in blackface was no longer okay to him. So I raise the question again, is it okay to use racism and even joke about a disability, all for the sake of a few laughs? 

And, two, our class discussion with Julie Reiskin about disability culture made me wonder, is it okay to be racist because of a disability? We talked in class about how within the disability culture persons with disabilities may use terms with each other that might otherwise be offensive if used by someone without disabilities. What about the deaf community? The created they’re own language out of necessity. Do you think that the deaf culture has a free pass for these types of signs? Or should they be treated the same as any other racist term?